Experiments : Toning

 The photograph above was covered in blue and red ink, which I then decided to bleach as it had covered the entire picture - making it harder to see the image. Although the bleach took away a lot of the detail, you can still see the image a bit better than when it was covered in ink.

 I liked this one above as it looks like blood, which I think relates well to my theme of gothic images. I think in future I will put less ink on to make it more subtle which I think will actually be more effective.

 For this one, I decided that I wanted to colour the star shapes in, as I thought that this would look interesting if there was a blend of colours, as this would add more detail to the image.

This one is similar to the blood- like drip earlier, except this colour is a shimmery green. I think that this technique works better than the one before, except I prefer the red colour.

Darkroom Experiments : Fairytales

For my first roll of film for this project, I decided to experiment with the bokeh technique that I had previously researched. The majority of my film was involving the lights so that I could see if I wanted to use it in my final outcome for this project, as well as general experimentation. I tried taking the photographs using different shaped filters, such as hearts and stars so that you would be able to clearly see that the lights had been changed.

For these two photographs, I created the double exposure effect in the dark room. These are both the same image, except the exposure on them in the darkroom is slightly different, creating two separate outcomes. I personally really liked how the double exposure worked, and I will definitely be using it in some way within my final outcome, perhaps by using a different shape to mirror the gothic theme that I am following.

 

For the third image, I decided to try out the solarisation effect, as it was something that I liked from the previous project. Although this one didn't work out too well, I think that the overall effect is interesting, especially with the lighting that I used - light only directed to one side of the face. This reminds me of the gothic theme, so I will try and experiment more with this technique on other photographs.

The final image is the same as the first and second one, however I decided to crop the image so that it really focused on the person and the clothes, as well as the stars. I think that this technique works well, but sometimes I prefer to have more of the background showing. Overall I think that it is an interesting technique to keep in mind.

Experimentation : Light and Layer Blending

I recently found a tutorial for different lighting effects for photoshop which you can find here.

I first tried it on a photograph from the Wildfox Couture photoshoot and also I think the first edit looks interesting, it's not something I think that I would try again. The second image was blended with another photograph from the same shoot, and I think that it turned out quite well and reminds me of the ghost style photographs I've looked at previously. Below is one of my own images, where I used some drip brushes (found on google) to create a contrasting effect of the black and white drips. I also think that this relates well to my gothic theme that I am doing.

Experimentation : The vintage photograph effect

I decided to experiment more with the vintage effect as I think that it works really well on photographs. This technique is similar to the Instagram Nashville effect I did a while ago, but is slightly different and creates a unique outcome.


To create this vintage effect, I used the tutorial from here and my version actually turned out slightly different to the example the tutorial used, but I actually like that my one is darker, as it adds to the gothic fairytale theme I am following. There were several different layers used to create the technique, but overall the outcome was easy to create and didn't take a lot of time to do. You could play around with the amounts of each layer to create something unique each time.

Overall, I really like this effect and I think that I will use it for my final outcome. I like how it can relate to the gothic fairytale theme that I have chosen and I also like the vignetting technique that I included in this photograph. I found it easy to create and I think that it is an simple yet dramatic effect to add to any photograph.

I then decided to turn the outcome into black and white and have just the green of the apple showing, which I thought made an interesting effect. I think that it would look better if it was more subtle, however. I did this by duplicating the layer and made the top layer black and white. I then used the eraser tool and rubbed out the image where the apple is, so that the colour showed through. I think that I will use this technique again as it draws more attention to a specific part of the chosen image.